Month: November 2023

There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people. [Isaiah 64:7-9]. The OT lesson appointed for the First Sunday of Advent, Isaiah 64:1-9 [Revised Common Lectionary, Year B] is located within what many OT scholars call “Third Isaiah” (Chapters 56-66). Many…

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left [Matthew 25:31-33]. As we approach the difficult Gospel reading assigned for the final Sunday in the current church year, Matthew 25:31-46 [Christ the King Sunday, RCL, Year A], we find ourselves amidst an overall theme of judgment. To be sure, the theme of judgment is not…

His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master” [Matthew 25:21]. Depending upon how one defines Jesus’ special word gems, our Lord offers us at least 30—perhaps as many as 50—parables within the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). Curiously, the author of the fourth Gospel, whose narrative style is considerably different, narrates none at all. To be sure, in the Synoptics, there are some duplicates. And even where the parables differ, they often express one and the same idea by means of varying…

Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, “Lord, lord, open to us.” But he replied, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour [Matthew 25:11-131]. When World War II ended in 1945, those who served in the armed forces were generally discharged according to what we’d now call a logarithm that combined two primary variables: (a) one’s length of service, and (b) the amount of time spent at or near “the front lines” of battle. The higher the serviceman’s combined value, the sooner he got a ticket home. Because our Dad had not been deployed overseas during…

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands [Revelation 7:9, a portion of the First Reading For All Saints Day, Revelation 7:9-17, RCL, Year A]. When it comes to the final book in the Bible, I follow the lead of John Calvin, the important theologian in the second generation of the Protestant Reformation. Like Calvin, I avoid it. Calvin wrote a commentary on every book in the New Testament except the last. And while I set…